At the bar

The Orchid Room is a collaborative writing project. Anyone can participate. Just a leave a comment like talking to the bartender or one of the performers. If you would like a night on stage you can audition anywhere.
This week the Orchid Room is proud to announce all new management.
And we are serving food prepared by
Wilbur Cox Jn. (Wil, to his mates.)
The wine is supplied by the wonderful folk at
The Grateful Palate.

“yeah, it’s me, Rose, old doubledouble. So much for my toil and trouble. Move over, share that fire with me, you old bastard. Maybe we should just burn this place down?”

“They’d have our heads on pikes, but they’d feed us and keep us warm until they did.”

“I could almost go for that.”

“Still havin’ your fits, darlin’?”

“Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes I’m okay, sometimes not. I start throwing things and shit. People scream at me and run away. The cops come. I can’t remember anything. I wake up shivering. They took me to that place again, last time. The one I told you about. Did I tell you? You tramps all start to look the same.”

“The place with the hooks and sideburns? Yeah, that was me. Sideburns was some guy, right? And hooks…?”

flicker, the burly woman, young now, not so burly, hair in a red scarf, pushing a shopping cart past the refrigerated meats, the juices, the milks and yogurts and on past the cheeses, teasing the toddler beside her, mindful of the infant in the seat of the cart. flicker, a shopping cart her decorated house on wheels, (she lives on the porch, under the backsteps… her portable hell, no children, no pets, no car, no partner, a snarl for the motorist yelling at her CRAZY OLD BITCH newspapers, clothes, wads of rags, flags stickers found objects, nameless things (she knows their names) attached to cart

dropping in the street like children lost again she must pick them back up she must she must SHUT THE FUCK UP she yells at the brittle horns, angry cars blaring noise, NOISE

flicker, flicker, flicker, flicker my name is rose, she thinks MY NAME IS ROSE

“I never thought of doing that.” The hobo spun around. The husky voice came from the shadows in the corner. “There’s a fireplace over here but I didn’t know if I could trust the chimney.”

The hobo grunted, weighed the threat and turned back to the fire. In the dark corner a pile of heavy velvet window drapes moved. From where she had been sleeping beneath them a woman, dark and burly, evidently homeless and possibly crazy and thick with desire for light and fire, eyed the stranger.